Majority of Alabama counties issuing marriage licenses to gay couples

Feb 13 (Reuters) - Officials in 24 Alabama counties began
issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Friday, gay
rights advocates said, a day after a U.S. judge ordered one
local official to issue licenses to gay couples in accordance
with an earlier ruling.

The shift means that a majority of Alabama counties are now
granting licenses to same-sex couples. It also indicates that
defiance to a federal ruling striking down the state's gay
marriage ban is weakening, as fewer local judges follow a
contravening order from the chief justice of Alabama's Supreme
Court.

"These numbers represent a seismic shift in favor of
equality and justice," said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the
Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, in a statement.
"Resistance to happy, loving and committed gay couples getting
married is quickly crumbling throughout the state."

Of Alabama's 67 counties, 47 are now issuing marriage
licenses to same-sex couples and another three will begin doing
so next week, the Human Rights Campaign said, four days after a
ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Callie Granade striking
down the state's gay marriage ban went into effect.

Alabama is the 37th U.S. state where gay marriage has been
legalized, and the first in the Deep South, where many voters
are socially conservative.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to grant a request
from Alabama's Republican attorney general to keep the weddings
on hold until it decides later this year whether laws banning
gay matrimony violate the U.S. Constitution.

But Roy Moore, the conservative chief justice of Alabama's
Supreme Court, ordered state judges to defy Granade's ruling and
uphold the state's gay marriage ban, an order his office said
remained in effect despite the Supreme Court's action.

A small number of local judges may continue to hold out
until they are sued and ordered to comply with Granade's earlier
ruling, but most now recognize that resistance will be futile,
said Ronald Krotoszynski, a constitutional law expert at the
University of Alabama School of Law.

"It's pretty obvious that it's all over but the shouting,"
he said.
(Reporting by Jonathan Kaminsky in New Orleans; Editing by Eric
Beech)